The Great War

FIRST WORLD WAR

RECRUITING

‘Lads you’re wanted, go and help’

On the railway carriage wall

Stuck the poster, and I thought

Of the hands that penned the call

Fat civilians wishing they

‘Could go out and fight the Hun.’

Can’t you see them thanking God

That they’re over forty-one?

‘’Lads, you’re wanted! Over there,’

Shiver in the morning dew,

More poor devils like yourselves

Waiting to be killed by you.

Go and help to swell the names

In the casualty lists.

Help to make a column’s stuff

For the blasted journalists

Help to keep them nice and safe

From the wicked German foe.

Don’t let him come over here!

‘Lads, you’re wanted – out you go.’

Take your risk of life and death

Underneath the open sky.

Live clean or go out quick

Lads, you’re wanted. Come and die.

IN THE TRENCHESNot that we are weary

Not that we fear

Not that we are lonely

Though never a lone-

Not these, not these destroy us;

But that each rush and crash

Of mortar and shell,

Each cruel bitter shriek of bullet

That tears the wind like a blade,

Each wound on the breast of earth,

Of Demeter, our mother.

LOUSE HUNTINGThen we all sprang up and stript

To hunt the verminous brood.

Soon like a demons’ pantomime

This plunge was raging

See the silhouettes agape,

See the gibbering shadows

Mixed with baffled arms on the wall.

See Gargantuan hooked fingers

Pluck in supreme flesh

To smutch supreme littleness.

See the merry limbs in that Highland flight

Because some wizard vermin willed

UTAH IN WORLD WAR I

• 21,000 Utahans saw military service

• 665 died and 864 were wounded

• 219 were killed on the battlefield

• 32 died of accidental causes

• 414 died from disease and illness.

• A number of Utah women, including eighty registered nurses, served during the war as nurses, ambulance drivers, clerical and canteen workers.

Draftees from Cache Valley

FORT DOUGLAS

• Training Facility

• Most soldiers had no military experience and had to be trained before shipping overseas

• Prisoner of War Camp

• Captured enemy soldiers

• German Internment Camp

• Germans living in US at outbreak of war, who were considered dangerous

• Draft Dodgers Internment Camp

• US citizens who did not want to fight

Thursday, May 03, 1917

FORT DOUGLAS TO BE INTERNE CAMP

SALT LAKE CITY UT -ORDERS FROM WAR DEPARTMENT DETAIL COMMANT FOR LOCAL PRISON - OFFICERS GET ORDERS - PREPARATION BEING MADE TO CARE FOR ENEMY ALIENS DURING THE WAR - That a long war is anticipated is indicated by the action of the war department in designating various army posts in the United States for use as prison camps for interning prisoners of war and enemies of the country during the continuance of the war.…It is expected that extensive barracks will be constructed at the internment posts capable of accomodating many thousands of prisoners sent there for internment.

While no definite information has been received locally as to the exact intentions of the war department, the order to the various officers to report to Fort Douglas for service at the war prison barracks is taken in army circles to mean that it is to be a camp where prisoners of war will be concentrated for safe keeping during the progress of the war with Germany. It is generally understood that this means that this means that Fort Douglas will be used as a concentration camp where German reservists, known enemies of the government, interned sailors and other undesirables from the Pacific coast section of the country will be held under military restraint until the war

DIARY OF FREDERICK CARL WISSENBACH FEBRUARY 6, 1918

• There are men here who are "chronic kickers" against Americanism, be so to speak spokes in a wheel. They are the men who through their recklessness are a danger to the quiet routine of the camp life. Men who try to break out, disobey orders from the Colonel, dissatisfied with the food-always want to be considered first but who themselves pay no consideration to the welfare of their fellow prisoners-and most of them are Prussians.

DIARY OF FREDERICK CARL WISSENBACH FEBRUARY 14, 1918

• If we could only get away from that type of man cursing and swearing, blackmailers, crooks, imposters, etc. To have nice company is wonderful and there are some of the men who are congenial. But the dire part of prison life is that even good company gets on your nerves for the simple reason that on the outside you can seek your friends whenever you want them and need them. But here they are with you, no matter if you wish to be alone.

• http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/worldwar1andutah.html